Stephen King fans will be excited to know that Castle Rock is arriving on Netflix on December 16th, 2025. With the IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 finale airing on Sunday, December 14th, on HBO Max, it's a great time to find a new eerie story to binge-watch, and Netflix is thankfully delivering. Castle Rock Season 1 began streaming on Hulu in July 2018, and while it had two seasons, it never got the attention of other TV series adapted from King's beloved (and impressively massive) body of work.
The series is set in Castle Rock, Maine, with the familiar Shawshank State Prison serving as another major location, and features a talented cast including Sissy Spacek, Bill Skårsgard, Melanie Lynskey, Lizzy Caplan, and André Holland. While 2025 has seen several King adaptations, including much-anticipated movies like The Long Walk and The Running Man, it's fun to dive into his back catalog, and Castle Rock remains one of the best.
Why Stephen King Fans Should Watch 'Castle Rock' on Netflix
Lizzy Caplan in a scene from Castle Rock.
Hulu
Let's admit it, TV adaptations of Stephen King's books, short stories, and novellas have had mixed results. IT: Welcome to Derry Season 5, Episode 7 proved that it was possible to create a gripping and terrifying prequel based on one of the author's most popular novels. But then there's Under the Dome, the disappointing three-season CBS series that made a mockery of the smart premise of residents of a small town stuck, well, under a dome.
Castle Rock can be considered King's most underrated TV adaptation, and every King fan should watch the thriller series because it features so many Easter eggs and hallmarks of his literary resume. For one thing, the small town where the show gets its name from is familiar to fans thanks to its presence in the books Needful Things and The Dead Zone, along with several other works. Then there's the setting of Shawshank Prison from The Shawshank Redemption, the fantastic 1994 movie adapted from King's 1982 novella. Speaking of Needful Things, Castle Rock character Sheriff Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn) is a major character in that novel, along with "The Sun Dog" novella and The Dark Half.
It's a lot of fun to become immersed in a TV show that celebrates the impressive and compelling mind of King, who has been scaring audiences on the page, along with the big and small screen, since his first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974. Carrie fans will appreciate seeing Sissy Spacek as her heartbreaking Castle Rock character Ruth Deaver. Ruth's dementia storyline is brutal to watch, but that's why it's such a strong arc. It proves the show has something important to say about family, love, and grief, and it's not just about strange happenings in a creepy small town (although that's part of the draw, of course).
Other characters are callbacks to famous King figures, from The Shining protagonist Jack Torrance's niece Jackie (Jane Levy) to The Kid, played by Tim Curry, who played Pennywise flawlessly in the 1990s IT miniseries. But while Season 1 is perfectly eerie, Castle Rock Season 2 might be the most appealing to fans thanks to Lizzy Caplan's awesome performance as Annie Wilkes, the sinister nurse who first appeared in Misery. Who wouldn't want to see this diabolical villain again? Rather than presenting a carbon copy of Kathy Bates's brilliant film character, the series shares what Annie is like when she's young and crafts a great character arc involving her daughter Joy (Elsie Fisher).
Castle Rock even impressed King himself. Executive producer J. J. Abrams told Entertainment Weekly that the horror author liked the idea of a TV series that includes his past characters and settings rather than a show based on one book or story. Abrams said the series "lives and breathes in a world that he created." Thankfully, when Castle Rock Seasons 1 and 2 land on Netflix on December 16th, fans can spend some time in that fascinating place.
Source: EW.com
